Assault By Philly Police `Reckless`

March 03, 1986|By New York Times News Service.

PHILADELPHIA — In a stinging rebuke to Mayor W. Wilson Goode, a special commission has concluded that the city`s top officials were ``grossly negligent`` in the confrontation with the radical group MOVE last May 13 and has called for a grand jury investigation.

The commission, which was appointed by the mayor, criticized virtually every step in planning and executing an attack, which came in an effort to evict the group.

The confrontation culminated when police dropped a bomb on the MOVE house, starting a fire that killed 6 adults and 5 children and destroyed 61 row homes, leaving 250 people homeless.

``The plan to bomb the MOVE house was reckless, ill-conceived and hastily approved,`` the commission concluded in a draft report. ``Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable and should have been rejected out-of- hand by the mayor, the managing director, the police commissioner and the fire commissioner.``

The 11-member panel says the mayor bears much of the responsibility for what Goode has called a ``fiasco.``

An aide said Goode would not comment until the final report is officially released, sometime later this month.

The commission urged that a grand jury investigate the children`s deaths, saying they ``appear to be unjustified homicides.`` The 37-page draft report is based on five weeks of televised hearings and hundreds of private interviews.

The panel said the administration of Goode, the city`s first black mayor, allowed racism to influence its decisions and failed to use ``sensitivity and care.`` It said the city would have acted differently if the MOVE house had been in a white neighborhood.

The panel strongly and repeatedly criticized Goode`s three most senior aides, Managing Director Leo Brooks, Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor and Fire Commissioner William Richmond, as negligent and ``irresponsible.`` But its harshest attack was directed against the mayor.

It said he was ``grossly negligent`` because he failed to halt the police assault even though he knew the children were in the house, which the residents had fortified.

It said Goode followed a policy of ``appeasement`` and repeatedly abdicated his responsibilities. This, the panel said, allowed what began as a neighborhood dispute to mushroom into disaster.

Goode`s explanation that he was reluctant to ``meddle`` in subordinates`

affairs ``in this instance represents a striking departure from his self-proclaimed hands-on method of city management,`` the draft report said.

``The mayor paused only 30 seconds before approving the dropping of explosives,`` the panel said. ``Had he taken more time before making such a critical decision, he may have considered the presence of the children, the possibility that gas was on the roof and the possibility that explosives were stored in the MOVE house.``